#fellow Kali fan spotted

[roguerambles]

Diplomatic Relations

Record of Ragnarök - Shiva x Male Reader. Mentions of Indra x Male Reader

Warnings - 18+Only. Adult situations.

Still suffering from the curse of Writer's Block, but thirsting with @icy-spicy over Record of Ragnarök (particularly guess who) got some creative ideas flowing. So blame her and thank her for this blasphemy :P

-

Shiva could not believe the Gods Council had been prolonged for this.

Indra stood at the centre of the chamber, his posture straight but somehow relaxed, presenting himself with his usual cool, confident demeanour. But even at a distance, he could spot the occasional, unconscious flex of his fingers, loosely gripping a pale sheet hanging low around his hips. It was only the slightest twitch of nerves, but Shiva wondered with some amusement when Indra had his last cigarette.

The God of Destruction let his gaze slip over his fellow deity's bare shoulder, where he could see You somewhat peeking out from behind Indra's back, your expression a good deal more sheepish. You similarly had a long sheet draped over your shoulders and spilling down at your sides, but it was plain to see you were both naked, wet and completely at the centre of attention.

Somewhere above Shiva, in the Chairman's Seat, Zeus was howling with laughter.

"...ahem."

Hermes cleared his throat politely, but loudly, only barely being heard over his father's wheezing cackle. "Thank you all for your attendance. This meeting of the Gods Council has been called to address the conduct of Indra, God of Lightning of the Hindu Pantheon, and...." Hermes blinked a few times, peering thoughtfully down at You. "...my apologies, which of Aphrodite's sons are you again?"

You huffed, looking indignant. From her seat across the hall from Shiva, Aphrodite made an eerily similar sound, snapping her fan shut with a loud click. "Really, Hermes. Get to the point, will you? This hardly seems like something to call all of us for."

Hermes smiled serenely at the Greek Goddess of Love, as Zeus's laughter began to settle into choked chortles. "Very well." Hermes lifted a large piece of parchment, clearing his throat once more. "The two deities before us today stand charged with the unlawful destruction of a Temple of Aphrodite in the human world."

There was an immediate rumble amongst the gathered gods, several voices rising up at once.

"Wait, a temple dedicated to his mother?" Kali asked from beside Shiva, sounding confused. "Why?"

"This is an outrage!" Somewhere near Aphrodite, Ares shot out of his seat, his face red as he pointed down at you and Indra. "How dare you?!"

"Well, this just got interesting." Buddha chimed in, chewing loudly on some sweet treat or another, looking awake for the first time the entire meeting.

You gave Ares an irritated glare, while Indra remained stoic, although Shiva could tell he was really craving a cigarette. Curiously, despite Ares yelling beside her, Aphrodite looked rather unconcerned about the destruction of her own temple. From what Shiva knew of the Goddess, this was a rather unexpected reaction.

"The Temple was empty!" You burst out, shaking your head furiously, sending drops of water flicking everywhere. "And the humans had abandoned the town for some festival, so its not like anyone was hurt--"

"You destroyed a town as well?!" You slapped your hand over your face as someone else cried out in shock.

You tried to keep talking. "I invited Lord Indra because I was...interested in learning more about his pantheon and--"

Indra snorted, loudly, and Shiva caught the smirk twitching onto his face before he quickly smothered it. You jabbed his side, hissing something that sounded distinctly like "You aren't helping!"

Shiva let his gaze trail over you, lingering on the exposed muscle of your thighs briefly before glancing back at Indra. "Nobody has mentioned the nakedness yet." He commented dryly to Parvati, who tilted her head in response.

"I was wondering..." She hummed thoughtfully, fingers gently stroking one of his arms. "I thought maybe it was some new fashion amongst the Greek Pantheon--"

You turned suddenly, and for a moment Shiva wondered if you had somehow heard them talking. You peered up, your head tilted, before a small smile bloomed on your lips. The sheet parted slightly, exposing your shoulders and upper arms, your stance shifting to show off more of your legs and thighs, barely concealed by silk. You lips moved softly, and Shiva could just make out the words--

"Like what you see?"

Shiva snorted at your audacity, feeling the edge of his mouth curve upwards in a smirk as he let his eyes slowly roam over you. "Yes." He mouthed back, and you grinned, slightly turning your body to the other side, your eyes sparking with mischief.

Parvati squeezed his arm. "Stop flirting, you." She covered her mouth in an attempt to smother a giggle. "You'll get us in trouble as well."

Hermes spoke again, his voice ringing over the rising noise of his fellow deities. "The Temple was destroyed by a powerful storm, which resulted in the town below becoming flooded." He raised the scroll higher, covering his face, but Shiva caught the slight, amused curve to his lips as he spoke his next words. "The storm was summoned via divine will during sex."

Shiva felt his eyebrows shoot upwards, sitting up with a jolt of genuine surprise. The entire chamber was silent for only a brief moment, everyone staring down at You and Indra in shock.

Aphrodite flicked her fan open again, a tinkling laugh falling from her lips. "That's my boy."

Everyone began talking at once.

"Wait, they didn't notice the storm because they were too busy fucking--?"

"Sounds like a good time."

"Apollo!"

"Indra lost control?" Durga sounded incredulous. "Our Indra?"

"Oh my." Parvati said softly, eyes drifting to wear you were standing, looking flustered. "It must have been very good, then."

"Parvati!"

"Only saying, Durga!"

Shiva laughed, loudly, reaching down to squeeze his wife's hand. She grinned at him, her own laughter bubbling in her throat, and Shiva could hear several others in the crowd join in on finding amusement in the situation.

Zeus finally seemed to have composed himself somewhat, wiping tears away from his eyes. "Oh, to be young again!" He chuckled, waving a hand dismissively. "Call this meeting to a close, Hermes. The damage was minimal--"

"The region where the Temple was located is now quite uninhabitable for humans, father--"

"Oh, two gods made love and inadvertently terrified some humans. Happens to the best of us." Zeus waved a hand dismissively, and Hermes sighed long-sufferingly.

"Regardless, Father, some discipline should be--"

"I agree with Hermes." A deep voice spoke suddenly, and Shiva lifted his gaze to where Odin sat, staring down at You and Indra with a cold, unimpressed look in his eye. "Accident or not, this can not go unaddressed. Or are the self-professed leaders of the Greek and Hindu Pantheons unable to control their own members?"

Shiva felt a stab of irritation - who was Odin to talk? Like his lot were so well behaved? - but he reached down to catch Durga's hand as it coiled around her weapon. Best not to start a brawl in the Gods Council Chamber (he could still remember the last one, and shuddered slightly at the memory. Nobody left that one unmarked.)

Zeus laughed, but Shiva could hear the sharp edge that had formed in his voice, the spark in the air moments before a lightning strike. He did not like to be questioned, either. "Perhaps you, Odin, would care too--"

Shiva seized the moment to rise from his seat, and spoke loudly and clearly. "He may return with us for a time." He gestured down to you and Indra. "To spend time among my pantheon." He smiled at you, allowing a faintly wolfish edge to enter his tone. "To learn from us. That is what you wanted in the first place, yes?"

You stared up at him in surprise. Beside you, Indra shook his head, but Shiva caught the pleased smirk flashing across his face. You shook yourself, grinning brightly as you bowed slightly towards Shiva.

"It would be a great pleasure, Lord Shiva." You said, tilting your head upwards, softly mouthing something only Shiva could hear. "For us both, I assure you."

Oh, he was going to enjoy you.

Odin sounded thoroughly unimpressed. "I hardly see what kind of punishment--"

"Oh, I'll put him through the ringer." Shiva said cheerfully, crossing his upper arms behind his head, grinning as Parvati struggled to contain her laughter beside him. "Both he and Indra. A good, stern talking to. Ensure it won't happen again, and all that." He nodded towards Aphrodite. "Does this please the offended party?"

Aphrodite smiled, looking delightfully amused. "Have your lovely wives share some of their finery, and I will consider it even, as the humans say."

"Ooooh!" Parvati waved from beside him. "I have some fabric you would love--"

"Excellent!" Zeus clapped his hands together, the sound of thunder signalling the end of the meeting. "Council adjourned."

Odin looked as though he wanted to smite everyone in the chamber, his birds squawking indignantly at his shoulders, but Shiva ignored him to focus on you whispering to Indra, who chuckled lowly and tugged at your hip as you both headed towards the exit. You cast a quick glance over your shoulder, shooting Shiva as playful smirk as you slipped around the corner.

You were going to be an interesting guest, Shiva thought to himself, smirking softly. He couldn't wait to hear a thoroughly clear account of you and Indra's encounter.

Perhaps a demonstration would be in order.

[fmhiphop]

Bootsy Collins Announces Compilation Album: Funk Not Fight

Funk legend and Cincinnati icon Bootsy Collins has put together a brand new record with the help of some fellow soul-train trailblazers. Bootsy Collins Presents Funk not Fight Bootsy Collins is best known for his prolific work with the bass guitar alongside James Brown. Throughout the 1970s, Collins made himself a household name with his unique vocals and masterful skills with the strings. Now, this innovator is using his influence to promote funk to a whole new generation. Funk Not Fight is a collaborative project featuring impressive modern jazz/funk artists like Lettuce, Buckethead, and Zapp. In addition to this, relative newcomers like Steve Lacy, Tommy Davidson, and Triggy are set to make an appearance. The album announced on Collin's 71st birthday, will also bring in funk fanatics from around the globe. Talented singers, rappers, and poets are encouraged to submit a virtual audition to possibly make it on Funk Not Fight. For any funk music enthusiast or any musician who loves and respects the art form, this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Even those who don’t land a spot on the album have the chance to work with Bootsy for his 2023 FUNKTROPOLIS Metaverse project and appear on a Fortnite Iconic Radio playlist. Making the Band The ‘Id Rather Be With You’ artist has always been an avid supporter of newer talent. Just last year, he collaborated with Silk Sonic and Anderson Paak for their hit single 'After Last Night'. Before then, he joined Kali Uchis and Tyler the Creator for another successful track 'After The Storm'. Clearly, Bootsy Collins makes it a priority to pour into industry freshmen. 'Funk Not Fight' is set to be released in association with Syncr and The Bootsy Collins Foundation. The album is also partnered with Fox Soul, Fortnite Iconic Radio, Spotify, Apple, Retro Fitness, and The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus. 100% of profits made will go directly towards “initiatives that are in need of financial support, that are dedicated to helping turn the tide of violence and unrest in our communities”. While an official release date is yet to be revealed, Collins released a teaser single yesterday to drum up some hype. You can listen to funk not fight below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gNUQqTS5QY In accordance with funk not fight and his birthday bash, Collins recently announced his new Apple Music radio show. A particularly special episode honoring funk not fight and Collin's 71st featured guests like Morris Day, Bruno Mars, Dr. Dre, Flea, Snoop Dogg, and Sheila E. If 'Bad Habit' is a playlist favorite, look out for an upcoming episode with Steve Lacy. If you’re a talented fan of funk and a fan of Bootsy, enter your work here. Written by Dreema Carrington Follow and like FMHipHop on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook! Read the full article

[hannahwayward-blog]

Kolkata Day 3: Boats, Trains, and Autorickshaws

Today marks my third day in Bangalore, which means I’m almost a week behind in blogging -- sorry all! Hopefully my daily instagrams have been enough proof of life that none of you are worried :) As I write this, I’m sitting on one of the porches at my friend Arune’s flat in Bangalore, which might be the closest thing to heaven I’ve ever experienced, but more on that later.

If Arune’s flat is heaven, then hell is the Howrah train station, which was where my adventure began last Monday. I had decided to go to Dakshineswar, a temple on the Hooghly (the city’s branch of the Ganges river) north of Kolkata dedicated to the goddess Kali. During my last visit to the city, we went to Belur Math, Swami Vivekananda’s temple also on the Ganges, but hadn’t made the journey further up the river to Dakshineswar. As far as I remembered (and research confirmed this), I could catch a ferry from Howrah to Belur Math, and from there another ferry to Dakshineswar. It would be a simple trip up the river and then I would get home in the reverse. My crucial mistake was forgetting, momentarily, that this is India, and the infinite deities laugh at plans.

I took a taxi from my hotel on Sudder Street to Babughat. The ghats are entrances to the Hooghly River, and from here I could catch a ferry to Howrah. This part was easy enough, although I got massively ripped off by my taxi driver - “100 rupees only, ma’am!” for a journey that should have been 50, tops - but it was already so brutally hot outside that I didn’t care. At 9:30 AM, the heat index had climbed into the 100s, and there was no way I was walking the couple miles to the ghat. I got my ferry ticket for about 10 Rs. and was shuttled over to Howrah across the teeming, gray-green stew that is the Hooghly. It was refreshingly breezy on the water, but that came to a sudden end when we disembarked at Howrah.

If Kolkata is the surface of the sun, Howrah that day was its molten core. Even in the pre-noon hours, the sun was scorching and a thick, heavy haze blanketed the street. I tried at least five different ticket windows, but got some version of “no” from each person: either their English wasn’t good enough and my Bangla wasn’t good enough to communicate, or they told me that Dakshineswar was closed, or that Belur Math was closed, or that there were no ferries, until finally I was told by a few different tellers to take the train to Belur. Crap. I had not planned on taking a train, nor did I have any knowledge of the train system, but I hiked it across the street to the large, red-and-yellow brick train station, another imposing, and slightly downtrodden, relic of the Raj.

Like I said before, if there’s a hell, it probably resembles the scene inside Howrah station. It was indescribably hot. Even sitting down, unmoving, sweat was running down every part of my body. My shirt and pants were soaked, and my hair felt wet despite having not showered since the previous night. Large fans only served to blow the hot air around, and the station was packed wall-to-wall with people equally miserable and sweaty. Again, I tried explaining my destination at a few ticket windows before I found someone with whom there was adequate mutual understanding. I was told I was going to take a train to Belur, and from the Belur station I would have to get to Belur Math, then ferry from there to Dakshineswar. Easy enough, right?

Nope, wrong again! The first challenge  was finding my train. There were, I think, 18 different sets of tracks, with trains constantly coming and going. Almost all of the signs were in Bangla, and even though there was a time that I could read Bangla text, I still would’ve had no idea what most were indicating. I asked the “enquiries” counter for assistance, and was told that I would catch the train at platforms 1 through 5, and that I should look for “1010.” With this knowledge I headed to the sets of tracks, scouring all the signs for the numbers “1010.” Nothing. No train on the entire daily schedule was #1010, and the time 10:10 had passed so that couldn’t be it either. I resorted to asking each incoming train at the platforms if their train was going to Belur, and was met with “no” after “no.” I then misinterpreted an announcement and booked it over to platform 15, which was clear at the other end of the station, only to find that this was not my train either. Drenched in sweat and feeling quite woozy, I went back to platforms one through five and waited… and waited… and waited.

After the sweatiest, longest hour of my life, during which I was stared at, smiled at, talked at, and begged from, I finally found a conductor whose train was going to Belur. I went halfway down the plaform to take a seat in the “ladies only” car (MAJOR key when traveling alone as a woman in India) and we were finally on our way.

After a 30 minute journey, we arrived at Belur, and I followed the signs for Belur Math, which was about a mile walk away. Just so we’re all on the same page, at this point my journey had involved a taxi, a ferry, a train, and my two feet. I arrived at Belur Math and breezed through to the riverfront since I had seen the temple before, and easily found the ferry ghat. To my dismay, I realized what the tellers at Howrah had been trying to tell me. The ferries between Belur Math and Dakshineswar were closed for construction! Crap crap crap. At this point it seemed I had two options - I could take the train back to hell, or I could try to continue to Dakshineswar. Being that I had no other plans for the day, I chose the latter.

From the Belur Math ghat, I took what can hardly be described as a ferry across the river again. The small boat shuddered and the motor, in the middle of the glorified raft with a roof, spewed black smoke. I ate a banana that I’d packed, and in an attemplt to move away from the fumes, one of my fellow passengers sat on the peel, which resulted in some laughter from both of us. Again, though, the breeze was a welcome change from the steamy streets, but I was still glad to get off on the Kolkata side. From there, it seemed it was a few miles to the town of Dakshineswar, then a couple miles from there to the temple. I asked a few people how to get to the town, and kept getting “bus” as the answer, but that seemed intimidating. A couple young girls offered to share their autorickshaw with me, and after some convincing (I was worried about getting ripped off but they assured me the price of 15 Rs. was good), I climbed aboard.

At this point I was three liters of water deep, and the need to pee had become urgent. Each bump and jump of the 20 minute ride was somewhat excruciating. Finally, we arrived at what seemed to be the bus junction, which was really just a few converging dirt roads, and from there I began the mile-ish walk to the Dakshineswar temple. The walk took me on narrow, busy paths straight through a slum, and it was the first time I’d been within one. Per usual, there was staring and begging, but I just smiled and said “na” and kept forging ahead.

Finally, around 12:30 -- three hours into my journey -- I arrived at the Dakshineswar Kali temple. I paid Rs. 2 to quickly use the bathroom outside, and then had to check in my bag, including my camera and phone, and my shoes. The brick and stone ground had baked all day in the hot sun, and the heat index had reached 117 degrees Fahrenheit. My feet were searing as I dashed from shady spot to shady spot, and even the thin rugs they had laid out were small protection from the heat. I saw a group of people sitting in the shade of one of the twin pavilion flanking the temple. The temple was smaller than I’d anticipated, but very ornately carved and quite beautiful. I joined the waiting group -- apparently Kali had to rest between noon and 1:30 -- fanning away the flies that had gathered in the scorching shade.

After a bit, the temple’s side door swung open. The onlookers rushed to form a surprisingly orderly queue, and the women in the group began a strange, shrieking cry as they pressed their palms together and touched their thumbs to their foreheads. It was a little surreal, watching the faithful swarm for a glimpse of their deity. After observing for a while, I went to look at the twelve small temples across from the main building, which were dedicated to one of the other gods. Behind these, I could see a park and then the river, and so I decided to begin my journey home.

At the Dakshineswar ghat, I was told there was no ferry service except directly across to the Howrah side of the river, which would’ve meant another train ride. Unwilling to take this on, I walked back outside the temple gates, bought another water bottle, and caught an autorickshaw back to the bus junction. My intention was to take a taxi back to the city, since I was due north, but the taxi driver I spoke with was trying to charge me an inordinate amount. I asked a few others standing around if there was a metro station nearby with no success, so I haggled with the driver but was still unhappy with the price. A young Bengali man walked over to me and told me, in English, that I could take a bus to Dum Dum, from where I could catch the metro to Park Street. He and the taxi driver proceeded to argue in Bangla, presumably about the price and the fact that the young man had taken business from him, and I thanked the man profusely before availing a bus.

After a few buses passed, I finally found one headed for Dum Dum. For Rs. 9, I joined a motley crew of businessmen and washer women on the non-airconditioned bus for a 45 minute journey through the northern parts of Kolkata. Living in Kolkata six years ago, I swore I would never take a bus. Usually crammed to the gills, they barely even slowed down to onload and offload passengers, with the porters hanging out of the open doors at front and back to pull riders on and help them off. Yet here I was, squeezed onto a bench near the front of the bus, sweating profusely amongst the Indian locals. The bus was open-air and non-AC, and the heat index had reached 122 degrees -- a new record for me.

At Dum Dum, I offloaded and walked to the metro station, from which I bought a ticket for Rs. 3 and traveled 30 minutes south to Park Street. The metro cars, blessedly, have air conditioning, and since my last stint in Kolkata they had added a “women only” section in the middle of each car. I encountered two other Westerners, Irish girls who were living in the city working at an NGO for five weeks, and chatted a bit with them before getting off at my stop.

Starving, I stumbled through the crowds at the metro exit and saw the new Domino’s at the corner of Park Street, where I ( scarfed down a personal cheese pizza before making my way back to my hotel. It was a little after 4:00 PM, so the entire day had been a seven hour trek. I promptly fell asleep for 10 hours.

Was the temple worth it? Honestly, no. Probably due to a combination of the extreme heat and my lack of knowledge about its significance - although I did have a good understanding of the history of the site - I found it to be underwhelming. The pictures I had seen made it look much larger. It was beautiful constructed, and it was fascinating to see the worship of the deities first hand, but not entirely worth the hassle it took to get there. However, the real question is whether the journey was worth it, and to that I give a resounding yes. Thanks to boats, trains, automobiles, autorickshaws, and my trusty Chacos; and the kindness of the countless people who confirmed whether I was headed in the right direction when I said “Dakshineswar, ha?” and pointed, who invited me into their autoricks, who helped me haggle with taxi drivers, and who got me there and back successfully; I had made my way, alone, to Dakshineswar and back despite closed ferry routes and stifling heat. I ended the day exhausted and dehydrated, but feeling remarkably self-reliant - and isn’t that what solo travel is all about? I think so.

[nationalfantasyfootballleag-blog]

Week 7 Power Rankings

With week 6 in the books here are our Power rankings brought to you by a special guest this week our lovable comissioner!!!!!

1. Super Bowl LIV- Eagles(Ty)- Coming off another win Ty looks like the team to beat so far. As long as his 3 star RBs continue to perform he will continue to hold the number one spot. He faces a challenge this week as he faces one of the top teams in the league in Akeem and he will have two of his top 3 RBs on a bye. Will he overcome adversity or will our next team jump him on the rankings?

2. ❤️🇨🇦(Phil)- Coming off a win against his rival John this owner is looking to capitalize and take the top spot in the league as what it looks like will be a tough week for Ty. He executed a very smart move by saving Chargers TE Hunter Henry until he came back from injury and dealt him for a very needed RB3 in Kerryon Johnson after his explosion against the Steelers. He will be facing one of the lower leveled teams in Justin this week. Will he be able to claim that number one spot over Ty? What other trades or moves does he have under his sleeve? Stay tuned to the league to find out.

3. Deep Sleeper(Chris)- Coming off a blowout win against Justin Chris will be looking to continue the momentum against Zach. With Chiefs star WR Tyreek Hill back from injury and scoring 2 TDs in his debut expect Chris’ team to be a lot more competitive. Expect Thursday’s night game to be the deciding factor in this matchup as Chris has Mahomes, Hill, and Sutton playing.

4. 🖕🏼🇨🇦 (Travis)- The Cowboys might have lost against the Packers but Travis avenged them by beating Mari last week. He will be looking to keep pace with the other four 4-2 teams as he goes up against Kali who is also 4-2. With starting QB Carson Wentz playing against the Cowboys this week we will see who Travis will be rooting for.

5. The Grind Never Stops(Shane)- After coming off a win against Akeem he will be looking to continue his winning ways against Taylor. Will Lamar Jackson win the battle of the Scrambling QBs against MVP candidate Russel Wilson or will he continue to slow down after two phenomenal weeks?

6. Team Shim Hook(Akeem)- Akeem is coming off a loss to shane which puts him in a crowded group of 4-2 teams. He will be looking to get back in the W column against Ty who even though has been putting up monster numbers has two of his star RBs on bye so this will be Akeem’s best chance to beat Ty. Who will get the W this week Akeem and DEM BOYS or Ty and the Fly Eagles Fly Squad?

7. Multiple Scoregasms (Kali)- Coming off a shocking loss against one of the worst teams in the league she will be looking to rebound against Travis. Her players this week have some pretty tough matchups so we will see how she does. She is also looking to break from the 4-2 pack. Her jets beat the Cowboys last week so can she channel that jets magic and beat this Cowboys fan this week? Tune in and find out.

8. THE DIRTY DIRTY SLATTTT (Zach)- Coming off a week where his team scored 157 against Taylor. This team sits at 3-3 looking to break .500 against Chris. We will see how his team performs when he is currently having an up and down season. With star QB Deshaun Watson playing the tough Colts we will see how the rest of Zach’s team performs.

9. Mike Ack (Justin)- After an embarrassing blowout loss to Chris and so far an underwhelming season Justin’s team will be looking to get on the right track against a surging team led by the commissioner. Can Justin pull off the upset or the year and get his team back on track or will he continue to struggle?

10. The Crosby Show (Mari)- After a decent start to the season this team has slowed down a bit and is currently looking at a 1-4-1 record. She will be looking to get her season turned around against another struggling team led by Tommy. Look for her to lean on her two Packers A A Ron Rodgers and A A Ron Jones.

11. Team Cooper (Tommy)- Tommy is coming off one of the biggest upsets of the season as he beat Kali’s team 149-107. He has been one of the struggling teams this season but he will be looking to continue his winning momentum against a fellow struggling team in The Crosby Show. Look for Daniel Jones to hopefully take advantage against a struggling Cardinals defense.

12. The Goatfather (Taylor)- Another struggling team is surprisingly a former champion in Taylor. Coming off a shocking loss to Zach he will be looking to bounce back and hopefully get his second W of the season against Shane. Let’s hope this manager can get back to his winning ways as he tries to fight his way back to the playoffs.

13. JetBlue!!!! (John)- Another struggling 1-5 team is owned by John Meyer. After suffering a devastating loss against the commissioner he will look to bounce back against the worst team in the league as he plays Alex. Nothing better than getting a confidence boost by beating one of the worst teams in the league. Will John get back in the W column or will Alex continue to fight his way out of last?

14. Black Lagoon Creatures (Alex)- Alex maybe the worst team in the league but he is in a trio of teams that are 1-5 so there is a slight bright spot to a disappointing season. He will be going up against another team looking to break free from the 1-5 group in John. Someone will get their 2nd win of the season while the other will get their 6th loss of the season which will destroy their playoff hopes even more. Another option could be a tie but who knows if we will see another one.

Those are your power rankings this week I would like to thank Taylor for giving me (the commissioner) the opportunity to write them this week. Hopefully everyone has a great week 7!!!!

[dorothydelgadillo]

11+ Lessons Every Marketer Can Learn from Verblio's Rebrand

So you’re thinking of rebranding your company, or you’re naturally lumped into the process as a marketer.

(Yes, these decisions can come from the top and can come in the form of a pile-on. I totally feel you!) Don’t fret.

I’m here to share some insights as someone very fresh off the process, and whose learnings both haven’t been fully repressed as bad memories nor fully eclipsed by rose-colored, nostalgic glasses for those parts that went particularly well.

Coming off the rebranding process at Verblio just five short months ago (at the time of this writing), it’s high time to sit down and reflect and see what we really learned. Honestly, few actually take the time to do this, so if you’re in the same boat, set aside reflection time, a la Mulan:

Whether you have a designer in-house (we didn’t before this last year!) or you’re coordinating freelanced or outsourced talent, going through product development changes or updating help pages screenshots, it’s easy to underestimate the scope of a rebranding effort.

For all those going through a full company rebrand, or something at a smaller scale, here’s what we learned that any marketer can take and apply.

1. Rebrands don’t mean your old brand was no good.

A quick intro: we’re Verblio, long-time IMPACT friend, more recent IMPACT partner, and fellow championer of HubSpot. We write all different types of content for businesses and the agencies that serve them.

Up until October 2018, we were known as BlogMutt—again, long-time HubSpot integration and partner in outsourcing content.

I’m Kali Greff, the head of content for Verblio, one of the members of our two-people-strong marketing department, and one of the defenders of the BlogMutt name to the bitter end. :)

I mean, I dare you to disagree that our BlogMutt mascot, Buddy, is the cutest:

...which brings me to my first point. 

Rebrands, in and of themselves, don’t mean your old brand was no good. 

In our case, the name BlogMutt grew our company to $2M in revenue over the course of seven years, steadily building over time, all while completely without investment, bootstrapped.

Aside from this, the BlogMutt brand played a significant role in how we did business and fostered a community of thousands of loyal, hardworking, flexible writers, and countless adoring clients/fans to match. 

And now, just because I know it’s coming... 

So, why did we rebrand? 

Largely, we made the decision to rebrand because we had outgrown the name. 

Every day, our community of writers collaborates with clients on much more than blog content, which was reason enough to leave BlogMutt in our rearview mirror. 

However, we were careful to carry the BlogMutt hardworking, approachable legacy to Verblio throughout the branding process. While leaving the clunky series of consonants behind. 

Takeaway #1: Don’t leave the best of your brand behind—reimagine it, evolve it—to fit your future vision. 

We even Verblio-ified Buddy the Mutt to make the newest Verblio character “Party Mutt,” who personifies this evolution so gracefully:

2. Stay agile and expect chaos, no matter how well you plan.

I’m sure anyone recalling their rebranding process can attest to battle scars. For us, the first cuts were the deepest. Our original website designers dropped out after several months of working with them, forcing us to really go back to the drawing board to even get our new website built. Even though we had full-fledged spreadsheets organizing multiple teams at the time, those spreadsheets were rendered useless in the absence of clear delineation of tasks (and people to do them, in our case!). 

This first obstacle was especially critical for two reasons—to call us all back together to a) rally behind the cause and b) pick ourselves back up to stay true to our “North Star” objectives. 

The result? We had our first all-hands-on-deck call to the whole team (one of many)—beyond just the marketing team—to execute well. And, out of this period of doubt and utter confusion, emerged the bright idea to hire our freelance design resource, the brilliant Mandi O’Brien, full-time (after we convinced her to move from NYC to Colorado, of course). 

This first cut was deep, yes, and was not the first of its kind. The main constant, we came to find, was c h a o s. But over the course of experiencing these obstacles and moments of utter madness, we healed, banded together, and developed resilience as a team—the new team of Verblio. 

Staying agile and expecting chaos was our secret to staying sane. 

Takeaway #2: Bend, don’t break, and expect bumps in the road…no matter what. 

3. Alignment around messaging is key—but don’t get crazy. 

On the tails of the point above, rallying behind the new brand is necessary (and great!). One of the ways to do this as a team is through opportunities to “try on” the brand as individual contributors and feel how it really “walks and talks.” To facilitate this, we engaged in a couple important workshops to compare our “versions” of Verblio to open conversations and narrow in on a voice that felt authentic to all of us. 

What’s less important, though, is exhausting messaging before the rubber even hits the road. 

Across the varying functions of team members, each department is going to naturally bring different lenses to the messaging table. In broad strokes, sales will overstate and seek to simplify, marketing brings the branding in strong to keep readers interested, and operations seeks to clarify and get the messaging spot-on to prevent customer confusion. 

And, as a company, we’re a bunch of wordsmiths at Verblio, to further exacerbate these pain points. We had our share of excessive iterating around messaging. 

But wordsmithing for wordsmithing’s sake will take exactly as long as you let it take. Meaning: it can go on FOREVER. 

Takeaway #3: Draw a line in the sand. The iterating on messaging as a team can, and must, follow. 

We finally agreed that we wouldn’t be able to unanimously align around our motto/tagline after weeks of toiling on it. 

The tagline only solidified when we were ordering business cards for the team in a flash moment of brilliance, courtesy of our stellar website copywriter, Annika Nagy. It’s hilarious how these things happen!

Exquisite tagline brilliance, served up by Annika Nagy. 

An interesting component unique to our situation outside the internal team was getting buy-in and over-communicating with our community of writers on need-to-knows and whys of the new brand. They have just as much stake in the company doing well as in-house employees—so they were a key aspect of the rollout plan and it was paramount to consider our messaging from their lens as well. 

As one of the last defenders of BlogMutt as a brand, I made a point to include our loyal writer base actively in the rebranding prior to the big “switch flip” to Verblio by sending “limited edition” BlogMutt T-shirts to these evangelist writers, as well as customer segments. 

This was wildly successful. Taking good care of your evangelists through what sometimes feels like over-communicating is always appreciated. Don’t skimp on that. 

(An aside: family buy-in rolls deep. We didn’t expect the degree of the hard conversations with family members about the rebrand—my boss and VP of Marketing Paul Zalewski talked all about the trials of getting buy-in from his opinionated 4-year-old daughter Kenzie in our official rebrand blog post. It’s definitely worth a read…promise.) 

3a. Devise a plan of what you want weigh-in on, who the decision makers are, and how to keep the whole team included without falling prey to “too many cooks in the kitchen.”

This is a slight extension on the last point—yes, it’s important to communicate, and over-communicate whenever possible, especially during a rebrand. Winning all aspects of a team’s buy-in comes in many phases, and often not all at once. 

It might feel counterintuitive in the context of project timelines to make allowances for seemingly peripheral tasks like this. But, it’s far from peripheral to take the time and care to hear as many voices as possible surrounding a rebrand. Including those voices in the process in some small way can convert your evangelists of Brand #1 to Brand #2. These evangelists you transition to the new brand serve as a critical foundation to your audience starting out. And man, as a marketer, those are pretty compelling low acquisition costs for a new brand, right?! 

There is a yin to this yang, however. There is a fine line between over-communication, cycles of feedback, and getting yourself in a nasty case of too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen. It is an ongoing struggle of getting voices heard beyond the core decision-makers during this period of transition and great change — while also needing to move forward and make decisions to keep the projects progressing. It is hard. There’s no getting around that. 

My best advice… 

Takeaway #3a: Keep conversation lines open. We had a #rebranding Slack channel to continue brainstorming as a team, apart from the one-off, scattered meetings to voice concerns, discuss in-person, and determine to-dos for each team member. 

4. You don’t have to be a Virgo to appreciate a good spreadsheet.

As mentioned previously, our kickass spreadsheet to align across departments and freelancers was so powerful, and in the face of personnel, organizational chaos, it really was the grounding force. (And yes, I’m a Virgo…why do you ask?) 

In fact, we’d love to share our spreadsheet with you (email me—kali@verblio.com—I’d be happy to send it your way)! It was the one thing we really weren’t able to find through the powers of content marketing to manage our rebrand…so we just created our own. 

Aside from that, this one source-of-truth spreadsheet was essential to organize and rally our team around the hundreds (yes, hundreds!) of cross-departmental tasks that needed to be completed. Beyond the main timeline, it also was a lifesaver AFTER the rebrand launch date to return back to quick-follow tasks. (And yes, stuff was missed! But at least we were able to know we missed it, amirite?) It became the catch-all. 

Takeaway #4: Ask me for our project spreadsheet. It immediately makes everything feel better. 

5. Moving to a new domain is painful for SEO, no way around it.

As excited as we were about our rebrand, we were equally worried about doing a website migration, for a couple of reasons:

Our company is lucky enough to count inbound as one of our most important customer acquisition channels.

In terms of migrations, this was a big one. In this wonderful guide to site migrations from the Moz blog, there are five major types of integrations listed. We were doing them all. All at once.

(source) 

So, we had good reason to be worried. 

But we also decided we wanted to be as prepared as possible. We met with our SEO agency. Paul, our in-house SEO expert, read guides, met with our technical team weekly, created checklists and did more worrying. We had a team of interns comb through our thousands of old blog posts to get them into ship-shape. We created a massive list of 301 redirects. 

I think in the end we were about as prepared as we could be. And, even with all of this, there was a drop in our organic traffic of 20% to 25%. 

It was scary. It lasted about six weeks. 

We also missed things. Despite that massive list of redirects, we missed a bunch. We changed some naming conventions and missed those changes on the redirect side of things, which caused hundreds of long-tail pages to 404. Paul and Wade, our CTO and co-founder, developed a daily cadence of fixing them. 

Here’s what our dip and recovery looked like for new organic users to the site (rebrand was launched early October 2018):

Takeaway #5: Find a great guide, read it twice, use it to make a checklist, and solicit expert help. Even with all that, prepare for the dip. 

6. Consider ongoing function AND design in website development.

A primary objective for our new website of the rebrand was to have a website we could easily manipulate—both text and design-wise. Previously, we could make text changes just fine, and everything was mobile-responsive, etc. But from a design perspective, it was unwieldy. We had to go back and forth with a designer to implement any layout changes (even small ones!) in our specialized template environment. 

No longer! And thank goodness. As agile marketers, we needed the capability to iterate, build, test, and make changes according to these experiments on our site. As marketers, you simply cannot settle for less! 

That said, it’s also hella easy to fall in love with the whimsical promises of a design agency wanting to make the flashiest new website. Yes, we all want nice websites, but clunky, beautiful websites that just don’t work well are never the goal. 

Keeping this objective front-of-mind from the beginning was a critical point we escalated time and time again in design conversations to really determine the best route for us. 

Since we were building our new website on WordPress, we landed on Beaver Builder as the framework for the design of our site, mostly recommended by our new designer, Mandi. (And we landed on this despite my boss, Paul, thinking that all visual composers for WordPress were bad). 

Takeaway #6: Be mindful of nice-to-haves vs. must-haves (and call them by those names!) in the rebranding process and how those affect your tech stack. Rebranding is a point to revisit and streamline if at all possible. 

(I cover this a bit more in point #11, too.)

7. There’s no time like the present to make a formal content style guide.

This point speaks for itself. Despite being a content creation company, we hadn’t yet formalized a content style guide like a branding style guide. It’s embarrassing and shameful to admit. 

However, we took notes from one of our favorite IMPACTers, the mighty content juggernaut Liz Murphy, who recommended establishing a content style guide right away. She was kind enough to share this post in its drafting stages to get us started on the right foot. 

It proved ESSENTIAL (yes, all caps) to us iterating beyond our in-the-trenches website copywriter to bring more in-house contributors in on the brand voice. The baton pass to the remaining contributors with this style guide in hand proved seamless! 

Takeaway #7: Don’t wait as long as we did to make a formal content style guide. Rebrands are a perfect time to do it. 

8. You will never find a brand/website/logo/copywriting style that makes everyone happy.

In fact, if you do, it might be a sign something is wrong, or worse—you’re not being bold enough. This harkens us back to an old Seth Godin post. Being forgettable is too big to risk in a rebranding process, given how expensive it is in emotional, time, resources, and actual money spends. 

Among the most polarizing components of our rebrand included the pink in the logo (our CEO Steve Pockross pulled a veto of it in the early days!), different names in the conceptual phase, variants of our logo (the term “bloated hippo” was featured!), our early Facebook retargeting ads asking prospects if they were “Verb-curious,” and our voice overall. 

Internal and external haters should be expected. 

The point that these haters can rally around, though, is that at the end of the day, it’s all about how you need to be making your audience happy… 

Everything, yes EVERYTHING, comes back to what works and resonates for your audience as marketers. This is a drum that the marketing department can, and should, beat like no one else. Without any compelled audience, any message, product, service, company becomes moot. So, beat it, marketers!

Takeaway #8: Internal and external haters should be expected. If your goal is to make all parties happy, rebranding is not going to solve your base problem. 

9. Figure out a way to “soft launch” various components and do iterative rollouts.

When we started talking about rebranding, I daydreamed about hitting one big, metaphorical button that said “Rebrand!” that did every single thing in one brilliant, fantastical moment. And there was indeed one day we appointed for more or less this purpose (for us it was a Sunday—we had a party at Verblio HQ). On that day, our CTO did change a few lines of code that implemented all of our redirects and became the official “moment” of the rebrand. And it was magical! 

But, in reality, all of the things that went into the rebrand were done over a much longer period of time. 

We made changes to our product that would be announced as part of the rebrand weeks before as a “soft launch” that allowed us to test them with a small group of customers. We launched our new domain name about a month before the rebrand with a “splash page” to start to warm the domain up and ensure our new site would rank #1 on Google for “Verblio” on Day 1 of rebrand. 

And, crucially, our CTO Wade suggested that we actually set our full website live a few days before the big day. Even though we’d tested it in staging, we ended up catching dozens of things that were wrong with the site because of this early launch, and put in hours of work on the Friday and Saturday before Launch Day to make sure it was ready for prime-time. (And technically Google got a preview of the site due to a Yoast sitemap submission we weren’t expecting.) 

All of this “pre-rebrand” launching totally saved our bacon and made Launch Day go off nearly without a hitch. 

Takeaway #9: Whenever possible, find ways to test or “soft launch” features, websites, domains, and creative assets before your big day. 

10. Show your quirkiness and prove there are real humans behind your brand.

It didn’t take a genius to notice in 2019’s round of Super Bowl ads that the general population is terrified of robots. And, to some degree, yes, we all are afraid of them. Yet, we as consumers interact with them consistently, in the form of “nicer robots,” like chatbots on web pages, email automation, and Alexa and Siri. As marketers, we know they have a critical role and continue to embrace the possibility for innovation within the marketing space. 

However, all this change begs for bringing humans forward whenever possible, especially in all forms digital. That’s why companies like Vidyard and Soapbox have made such gains in the overall market—we as humans love interacting with humans. It’s in our DNA. 

So, naturally, in a digital setting, and especially for us as a company backed by 3,000 talented, industry-expert freelance writers, it was a no-brainer to highlight our happy writers with much more focus for the Verblio rebrand. The BlogMutt iteration of this was definitely of its time—highlighting a crowd of writers vs. each of the individuals who would serve our clients. 

That, and we wanted to highlight the quirky humans we employ in-house, too! We have book club meetings, we write weird blog posts, we riff and make bad puns (though I wholeheartedly maintain that NO pun is a bad pun!) on Slack daily, and we wanted to be more personality-forward with the new brand. 

And we sure had fun with it. 

From our announcement splash page:

From our announcement blog post:

Also from our announcement blog post, our future Verblio music album cover, probably:

From our ‘Meet Verblio’ page, where we share our favorite words:

Takeaway #10: Have fun, both internally and externally. Like, REAL fun. The creativity that is part and parcel of uprooting your entire brand’s concept lends itself to super memorable and just plain fun results. Welcome it! 

11. Remember what you’re rebranding for.

This ties back into point #1, but keep the strengths of your old brand, and where you seek to fill the gaps with the new brand, near and dear to your heart. 

As nerdy and basic as it sounds, make a list of guiding objectives for your rebrand and laminate it or otherwise make it easy to refer back to. You’re going to need to keep returning to it again and again, and over time it transforms into a “love language” of sorts for your in-house team. It will be a crucial communication point to keep everyone aligned around the same things you all deeply care about. 

As you embark on the rebranding process, it’s an equally slippery slope to either over-complicate the process or significantly under-complicate it.

Looking back from where I’m sitting, I’m pretty sure rebrands typically fall into two buckets:

Companies that internally fight tooth-and-nail throughout the process to “elevate” to an uncommunicated, vague, impossible level of perfection for the new brand, or

Companies that are so eager to get from point A to point B that the rebrand turns into a simple new coat of paint or swap of a template vs. a true reimagining of what the website, and brand, should feel like. 

Don’t be either of these guys. Both undermine what a rebrand should do and accomplish. 

Keep that nerdy, basic list handy and keep returning to it. Guide other team members to return to it. Just like I’m doing now. 

It can serve as the breadcrumbs to your Hansel and Gretel to take you back home, home to your new, awesome brand.

Takeaway #11: Sounds nerdy, but make a list of objectives for a rebrand. Keep returning to them, starting meetings with them, and continually remind the team members what it’s all for. 

Conclusion/Over to You

As promised, here’s our list of takeaways (and bonus! It was more than 11!) to carry with you into your own rebrand.

Takeaway #1: Don’t leave the best of your brand behind—reimagine it, evolve it—to fit your future vision. Takeaway #2: Bend, don’t break, and expect bumps in the road...no matter what. Takeaway #3: Draw a line in the sand. The iterating on messaging as a team can, and must, follow. Takeaway #3a: Keep conversation lines open. We had a #rebranding Slack channel to continue brainstorming as a team, apart from the one-off, scattered meeting to voice concerns, discuss in-person, and determine to-dos for each team member. Takeaway #4: Ask me for our project spreadsheet. It immediately makes everything feel better and tackle-able. Takeaway #5: For SEO, find a great guide, read it twice, use it to make a checklist, and solicit expert help. Even with all that, prepare for the dip. Takeaway #6: Be mindful of nice-to-haves vs. must-haves (and call them by those names!) in the rebranding process and how those affect your tech stack. Rebranding is a point to revisit and streamline if at all possible. Takeaway #7: Don’t wait as long as we did to make a formal content style guide. Rebrands are a perfect time to do it. Takeaway #8: Internal and external haters should be expected. If your goal is to make all parties happy, rebranding is not going to solve your base problem. Takeaway #9: Whenever possible, find ways to test or “soft launch” features, websites, domains, and creative assets before your big day. Takeaway #10: Have fun, both internally and externally. Like, REAL fun. The creativity that is part and parcel of uprooting your entire brand’s concept lends itself to super memorable and just plain fun results. Welcome it! Takeaway #11: Sounds nerdy, but make a list of objectives for a rebrand. Keep returning to them, starting meetings with them, and continually remind the team members what it’s all for.

Now, it’s your turn. What’s your rebrand process looking like? What of this list was or wasn’t helpful to you? What do you wish I covered more of? I love feedback—the good, the bad, the ugly. I also love nerding out on rebranding and content at large. 

Let’s keep talking and get in touch with me in the IMPACT Elite group on Facebook—feel free to @ or message me directly! I’d love to hear from you—I’m so fresh off this process and am happy to lend an ear or help brainstorm on any of this stuff.

from Web Developers World https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/11-ish-lessons-every-marketer-can-learn-from-verblios-rebrand

[witches-with-weapons]

About Me

I’ve been a witch for about 10 years, and I’m constantly learning something new. I’ve worked with a few different pantheons, mainly Egyptian and Celtic and an interesting stint with Kali alone, and I’m willing to suspend disbelief for just about everything until given reason not to. I do not follow any single given tradition. I’m just trying to find my own way. I’ve been solitary most of the time, but have done circles with friends and family and fellow pagans. I’ve never joined a coven.

I enjoy working with Tarot cards and certain oracle decks. I prefer gemstone magick over herbal magick, but I’m trying to branch out (ha, get it?). I’m also a big fan of trees, and the stars. I love to make charms by making jewelry, and I’m a strong believer in meditation practices and astral travel and journeying. I work with dreams and positive affirmations every now and again, and I like having a “prayer box” on my altar. I’ve started learning about Faeries, due to some strange, unexpected experiences in that department. If I had to categorize myself as an element, I’d say either Air or Fire.

I’m a firm believer in making do, in doing what feels right to you, in simplicity, and in the autonomy of the individual. Essentially, I won’t crucify you for what you believe. I try to be very, very tolerant. 

Some of my favorite witchy/pagan authors include Starhawk, Christopher Penczak, Stephanie Woodfield, Rosemary Clark, and M. Isidora Forrest. My guilty pleasure is Silver Ravenwolf, because her books were the first Craft books I ever read and so she’ll always have a soft spot in my heart, despite her shortcomings. 

I’ve worked with Erin Dragonsong on HTML coding her website and her school, and co-wrote an article on Mercury Retrograde for her Silver Chalice E-Zine. I’ve also published articles on witchvox.com. I enjoy writing about the Craft and sharing my experiences, in the hopes that it will help other people too. 

Besides witchcraft and the related, I’m an avid gamer (separate blog for that!), writer, and equestrian. I love to to talk and make friends! Feel free to shoot some mail my way!

[flauntpage]

Kyle Walker on Winning Skateboarder of the Year and the Mad Winds of Oklahoma

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports UK.

Let me start by addressing the witty comment you may be about to make – yes, there is a footballer named Kyle Walker. And yes, this interview is with a skateboarder who happens to have the very same name. If you want to say something about how we've picked the wrong Walker, go ahead. Knock yourself out, buddy; well observed, congrats, etc.

If you are a trigger-happy Spurs fans who clicked on this article without looking at the photo (thanks for the click-through, btw – you the real MVP), don't rush off. Stick around and let me educate you on this Kyle Walker, because though he might not be a gifted right-back he is arguably the best skateboarder in the world right now. And, in an age when skateboarding is more popular than ever, that's no easy accolade.

Finding faults with Walker's skateboarding isn't easy; he's as good technically on a flat-bar as he is at bombing a hill to launch down a huge set of stairs. You know what? It's pointless even trying to explain how good he is when you can just watch 'No Other Way', the Vans video that stars him and fellow ripper Elijah Berle. When the video dropped last year, Walker managed to change the face of skateboarding altogether – and rightly won Thrasher magazine's coveted Skateboarder of the Year.

We caught up with Kyle at the newly revamped House of Vans, where he was testing out the new school-yard-inspired layout with a few of his pals, including Daan Van Der Linden (catch our interview with Daan here).

VICE Sports: Were you expecting to win SOTY?

Kyle: A lot of people were like, you should go for it, and so I just kind of started thinking that it would be dope if it all lined up, but I was never actually trying for it. Me and Elijah skating together for that video worked well, because you get certain people you skate with that hype you up, and Elijah is definitely one of them. So thankfully the stars aligned.

How hard was it filming the 'No Other Way' part?

Now it feels like a blink of an eye, but it was definitely pretty hectic. It was good though. It wasn't like a full-length video where there were so many people on the trip – not that I'm opposed to that – but it was always mellow, so every trip was productive.

Each trick seems impossible to me, but which was the hardest? The kinked rail at the end?

Yeah, the kinked rail was obviously a stress case. It actually started off as a joke. Me and my homie Mason Silver saw the rail and we thought it was like something from Skate 3 the video game, or something. I held on to my friend's shoulder and dropped in on it as a joke, and everyone started tripping, like, maybe this is possible. After that I didn't check it out for over a year and a half, and then we were driving by it while filming for the video. That started a four-day process of kicking out, getting a bit closer, then eventually getting it down.

READ MORE: Sean Malto on Skate Culture and Culture Shocks

Going back, can you talk me through how you got into skating, and how you progressed?

I got into skating after I traded a bag of chips for some trucks. I got home and realised I didn't have anything else, so for Christmas I asked for a board. Then I got a couple of those little X-Factor ramps, and then it went from there.

Who were your influences?

My best friend Trevor Bond – he used to shoot amazing photos so I looked up to him – and just my friends and locals I used to skate with. I didn't have many friends who were my age, so I used to hang with and look up to the older guys.

Kyle hanging with a true skate pup

Did you have any particular favourite videos parts?

I just fucking loved all Emerica stuff, you know? 'This Is Skateboarding', 'Kids in Emerica', etc. 'Baker 3', even though it's not that old, was one of my favourites. All the old Transworld videos, 'In Bloom'… I placed in a contest when I was a kid and I won 'In Bloom', 'Sight Unseen' and 'Free Your Mind', and I just watched those on repeat.

READ MORE: Josh Kalis Recalls the Glory Days of Love Park

What was it like to skate in your hometown in Oklahoma?

In the summer it was so hot and humid, and just fucking deadly. But I just fused to it and didn't know anything else. Winter it could be sunny, snowy, rainy or 50mph mad winds. Then April to the middle of June, which is when you hit tornado season, is fucking crazy. There are a lot of spots though, and not many people skate them.

Where's your favourite place to skate now?

Probably Copenhagen – have you been? [Nathan has indeed been--Ed.] It's insane dude, you just ride bikes everywhere, drink beers in the street, there's spots everywhere, you can buy weed at Christiania – so yeah, I'd say Copenhagen, Sydney, or Barcelona.

How about London? Are you into the new set up here (at House of Vans)?

It's dope man. The last one was sick too, but I feel like this one has more flow, and I thought it was dope how they've added a pole jam. I didn't know until yesterday that it was all free – it's so dope.

What are your next aims?

Just stay busy, you know? This year I just want to keep skating and see what happens without planning anything. My summer is booked up, but I've got no video bookings. You know how Vans did 'No Other Way'? Well, I think they're planning another part. Don't quote me on that, but it could be fucking rad.

@NatahnCopelin

Kyle Walker on Winning Skateboarder of the Year and the Mad Winds of Oklahoma published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[fmhiphop]

Bootsy Collins Announces Compilation Album: Funk Not Fight

Funk legend and Cincinnati icon Bootsy Collins has put together a brand new record with the help of some fellow soul-train trailblazers. Bootsy Collins Presents Funk not Fight Bootsy Collins is best known for his prolific work with the bass guitar alongside James Brown. Throughout the 1970s, Collins made himself a household name with his unique vocals and masterful skills with the strings. Now, this innovator is using his influence to promote funk to a whole new generation. Funk Not Fight is a collaborative project featuring impressive modern jazz/funk artists like Lettuce, Buckethead, and Zapp. In addition to this, relative newcomers like Steve Lacy, Tommy Davidson, and Triggy are set to make an appearance. The album announced on Collin's 71st birthday, will also bring in funk fanatics from around the globe. Talented singers, rappers, and poets are encouraged to submit a virtual audition to possibly make it on Funk Not Fight. For any funk music enthusiast or any musician who loves and respects the art form, this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Even those who don’t land a spot on the album have the chance to work with Bootsy for his 2023 FUNKTROPOLIS Metaverse project and appear on a Fortnite Iconic Radio playlist. Making the Band The ‘Id Rather Be With You’ artist has always been an avid supporter of newer talent. Just last year, he collaborated with Silk Sonic and Anderson Paak for their hit single 'After Last Night'. Before then, he joined Kali Uchis and Tyler the Creator for another successful track 'After The Storm'. Clearly, Bootsy Collins makes it a priority to pour into industry freshmen. 'Funk Not Fight' is set to be released in association with Syncr and The Bootsy Collins Foundation. The album is also partnered with Fox Soul, Fortnite Iconic Radio, Spotify, Apple, Retro Fitness, and The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus. 100% of profits made will go directly towards “initiatives that are in need of financial support, that are dedicated to helping turn the tide of violence and unrest in our communities”. While an official release date is yet to be revealed, Collins released a teaser single yesterday to drum up some hype. You can listen to funk not fight below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gNUQqTS5QY In accordance with funk not fight and his birthday bash, Collins recently announced his new Apple Music radio show. A particularly special episode honoring funk not fight and Collin's 71st featured guests like Morris Day, Bruno Mars, Dr. Dre, Flea, Snoop Dogg, and Sheila E. If 'Bad Habit' is a playlist favorite, look out for an upcoming episode with Steve Lacy. If you’re a talented fan of funk and a fan of Bootsy, enter your work here. Written by Dreema Carrington Follow and like FMHipHop on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook! Read the full article